“Terminus Malaussène”: Daniel Pennac releases his scapegoat

With his new novel, the writer puts (perhaps) an end to the malicious saga which made him famous. Meeting around a pasta dish.

by Raphaëlle Leyris

We had to have lunch at Daniel Pennac, in Paris, but his election “tribe” invaded the house a few days before Christmas. Here we are “fired, properly fired”. The writer takes an outraged air, but has fun being put at the door. Direction the Italian restaurant on rue Pierre-Bayle, which is both his canteen and that of his famous character, Benjamin Malaussène: the latter goes to lunch there with Loussa de Casamance, publisher, Senegalese specialist in Chinese and venerable old man (he fought in Monte Cassino, in 1944, then, yes, logic would like him to bow out, but why do you want Pennac to hurt us? To whom a slight fictional increase in life expectancy made -I of evil?).

It’s funny, this impression of entering the decor, and seeing, as we have read, pippo in the stove and Dany in theaters, welcoming with warmth and jokes of jokes the one they nourish so often . By folding our eyes a little, we would swear to see the dog of Malaussène, Julius, third of the name, in a corner of the restaurant, spreading his repugnant Fume. The regulars alpine Pennac. He is a pillar of this 20 e arrondissement which he has not left since his arrival, in 1970, and which he celebrated, from one volume to another in the series devoted to Malaussène, the Belleville district with a fervor that is worth all the tourism offices. This is still the case, obviously, in Terminus Malaussène, the new, eighth and theoretically ultimate volume of the saga started in 1985 with the happiness of the Ogres (all his books appeared in Gallimard). Be careful, however: Pennac had already made us the blow of the “der of the ders” in 1995 with Mr. Malaussène, fourth volume.

But to start, perhaps we have to remember in oblivion, distracted or younger what they are, these “malaussneuries” (dixit the author), sold around 5.5 million copies in France, and translated worldwide? In the previous volume, they lied to me (2017), first of the diptych the Malaussène case including this terminus … is the continuation, the atrabilaire Alceste, writer attached to the “true truth” (called “vevé”) presented them under One day little leads: “When I think (…) that during all my adolescence, this character federated the world of approval literature! The darling of these years! Malaussène here, Malaussène by that, he There was no way to escape it. It was the gift of all birthdays. The trendy parents recommended reading the teachers. When Tobias and Mélimé [his parents] did not tell me about the story of the story of Our family, my friends were basking me with Malaussène, the ineffable scapegoat. “

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